IRONMAN Kona 2024: ‘Off the charts VO2 max’ means Big Blu is ready to go the distance – Mark Allen

Motivation and an off-the-scale VO2 max are just two of the reasons the great Mark Allen thinks Kristian Blummenfelt is going to produce a massive performance at the IRONMAN World Championship this weekend.

The Norwegian superstar has won every title that matters in triathlon – from Olympic gold through to the IMWC – but by his own incredible standards, 2024 has not been a vintage year.

The first big target was the Paris Olympics and defending that gold medal from Tokyo. But dropping back down in distance and reaching the same level again proved beyond him as he finished outside the top 10 in the French capital.

But he’s already shown that moving the other way and stepping back up in trip is an altogether more attainable goal, which brings us to target number two for 2024 – a first win in Kona.

For Big Blu’s previous IRONMAN World Championship victory wasn’t in Hawaii but instead at St George for the rescheduled 2021 edition of the race. When he did line up in Kona five months later, he couldn’t replicate that result as he had no answer to training partner Gustav Iden and Sam Laidlow, eventually taking an exhausted third.

Paris payback time?

So there are scores to be settled on the Big Island and points to prove after Paris, which six-time Kona legend Allen believes is a powerful combination this week.

He told us: “Kristian is a very unique character as we all know. He seems to race quite well when he’s had disappointments. Like I don’t think he is going to look back at Paris and go ‘wow, I did so amazing’. I think he’ll look at it like: ‘Alright, that was nowhere near what I had planned on being able to do’. He had this frothing, fierce finish to win gold and he didn’t do it again, he didn’t defend so I think he’s probably got a lot of motivation to really do well in Hawaii.

“One, he hasn’t won in Hawaii. Secondly he is coming off the heels of Paris, and a lot of people might go ‘well he was focused on short-distance racing and now he’s doing an Ironman?'”

‘Not a big step for him’

But on that second point, Allen – with all his racing and coaching experience – really doesn’t feel that going from short to long course, especially in the case of Blummenfelt, is anything like the challenge of doing it the other way around.

He explained: “Well, first of all probably his short-distance training load was very very high anyway, so to bump up to Ironman training probably isn’t a big step for him.

“Secondly, it’s much easier in my opinion as an athlete and coach to go from super-fit Olympic distance to Ironman than it is from Ironman down to super-fast Olympic distance. Because you have this massive VO2 engine built from doing the high intensity work required for Olympic distance racing.

Blu’s VO2 max is already off the charts, and so I can only imagine what it is now.

“You take that huge VO2 capacity, that ability to get in a ton of oxygen and you translate that into longer endurance aerobic training, you’re training at a really fast pace and you’re going to get really fit really quickly – very different than somebody who is just coming into shape with a lower VO2 max and they’re trying to build both of those things at the same time.

“So I think he’s probably going to have a really good race here. After that Ironman it showed he’s ready to go that distance.”

And “that Ironman” Mark refers to is IRONMAN Frankfurt which came LESS THAN two weeks after Blummenfelt raced the Mixed Team Relay in Paris.

Up against a huge field of over 80 male pros in Germany and just needing to finish to validate his Kona ticket, the great Norwegian did way, way more than that.

For he ran out the clear-cut winner, rounded off by a 2:32 marathon – despite a port-a-potty visit and projectile vomiting – to send out a clear warning to his rivals that he’s one of the big favourites in Kona on Saturday.